Goal: To revisit the end of Lesson 1 and activate background knowledge by encouraging students to share with their peers.

Time: ~15 minutes

Steps & Teacher Directions:

• Begin by re-distributing Lesson 1’s exit ticket to the students, which bridges into the introduction of Lesson 2 with a backside that should be unfilled

• Ask students to review their answers from the front side of the sheet for 45 seconds to 1 minute.

• Have students follow the instructions on the backside of the sheet and pair up with one another, sharing their answers from the first half of the worksheet.

• Create a signal and let them know what that signal is so that they know when it is time to come back together as a class (examples: “Time to wrap it up—let’s regroup!”, “Let's circle up in 5!”, “If you can hear me, give me a thumbs up!”).

• After a few minutes pass, grab their attention using your signal of choice. 

• Invite one person to share from each pair, as instructed on the sheet (ex: “Does anyone want to share what you or your partner said?”)

• If no one is sharing, spontaneously choose one person from each pair to share. This should be a somewhat comfortable spontaneous speaking activity regardless, as the sentence(s) they share will be their partner’s; this should alleviate some fears or insecurities on the speaker’s behalf, as they don’t have the perceived pressure of making their speech clear and communicating “correct” ideas.

• Build on some of the students' thoughts as they share aloud, then proceed to the next activity.

Goals: To highlight the importance of understanding refugee trauma through articulating the impacts of displacement on mental health and to show an understanding of how others perceive refugees.

Time: ~25 minutes

Steps & Teacher Directions:

Introduce Vocabulary

•  Pull up these Google Slides. Go over the vocabulary words with them individually and provide examples of each word used in a sentence. 

• Before moving on with the lesson, make sure they have a good understanding of the vocabulary words and their meaning.

Group Formation

• Divide the class 

  • Organize the class into groups of 4; depending on the class layout, try to encourage group shuffling either by numbering off students to form multiple groups of 4 (if students sit in individual seats) or by having 1 to 2 students sitting at grouped tables rotate with each discussion question.

• Distribute worksheets

  • Pass out this worksheet that contains all of the vocab words and the discussion questions

  • The targeted vocabulary consists of words such as: 

    • PTSD

    • Trauma

    • Loss

    • Hope

    • Displacement

    • Empathy

Explain Discussion:

• Explain that students will be expected to discuss the questions given with each other. They will reflect on their knowledge about refugees and include the vocabulary we have learned in these discussions. They will have 2-3 minutes per topic. Once the alarm goes off, switch to the next question.

• When the 3-minute alarm goes off, grab the students' attention and read aloud the next discussion question.

  • Caveat: Feel free to adjust the time; if you notice discussions yield positive interaction but stall out before the timer, cancel the timer and manually move the class along so that students aren't derailed from the objective by falling into silence.

Monitoring: 

• Walk around the room, listening to discussions and providing support as needed. 

• Provide guidance as needed and help groups if they seem stuck.

• Teacher involvement in introducing a new view or perspective on the question can reinvigorate discussions, but the goal is ultimately for students to be the ones speaking; make sure to balance this role concerning the amount of speaking and listening you do as a monitor.

Regroup/Conclusion:

• Invite a few students to share insights from their discussions.

• Encourage reflections on what was learned and how it can be applied in real-world contexts.

• Facilitate a brief discussion on what students learned and how they can apply this understanding in real life. Encourage thoughts on the importance of empathy towards refugees.

Goal: For students to independently reflect upon their own emotions in response to the story of a Syrian refugee through an emotional mapping activity.

Time: ~25 minutes

Steps & Teacher Directions:

• Using these slides, explain that you are going to show the students a video about Iyad, a Palestinian refugee from Damascus, Syria

• Turn subtitles on and set the video at an appropriate speed for effective student comprehension.

• Encourage students to keep their emotions in mind while viewing and to consider Iyad's emotions as well.

• Trigger Warning

  • Provide a trigger warning for students since this can be a sensitive topic.

  • Example warning: “I am going to give a trigger warning because I know this can be a sensitive and upsetting topic for some. If you would like, you can put your head down, face away from the screen, and listen to the video instead, or you may leave the room and get a peer report on the video afterward.”

• Play the video. Don't immediately ask students for their thoughts; let them sit with their emotions for a few moments.

• Reincorporate students who may have exited the classroom and ask students an open-ended question such as, "Would anyone like to share what emotions you felt while watching the video?"

• After some students share, you can add how it made you feel or any extra relevant commentary.

Emotional Mapping

• Distribute this handout with a blank outline of a person. 

• Number each student off with a 1 or 2. Make it clear that the different numbers will have different roles.

• For 1s: Instruct them to label the internal things that a refugee may have on the inside of the outline (such as fear, sadness, hope, emptiness, stress, etc) within the outline. 

• For 2s: Instruct them to list external factors that refugees struggle with (such as: fleeing from war, leaving their homes, being injured, being hungry, etc.) on the outside of the person's outline.

• Once the students label their emotion map, ask them to use the vocabulary words they listed to prepare a short paragraph about how their factors, internal or external, applied to Iyad’s experience (multiple sentences, at least 2-3).

• Give students about 10 minutes to complete this activity independently before regrouping. Remind them that they will need writing utensils.

Wrap-Up

• Once students' attention is regathered, poll the students by asking them to raise their hands to one of the following questions:

“Who focused more on the internal struggles refugees face? Who wrote more on the inside of the person’s outline on their sheet?” 

and

“Who focused more on the external struggles refugees face? Who wrote more on the outside of the person’s outline of their sheet?”

• This will serve as a post-activity comprehension check to make sure that the numbers stayed even between the two groups after being numbered off.

Goal: For students to gather information from their peers who had a task opposite theirs and then report it to the rest of the class.

Time: ~25 minutes

Steps & Teacher Directions:

• With students now re-engaged as a whole group, have them form pairs with peers from the task opposite their own (i.e., 1s or students who did the internal part of the emotion map pair with 2s or students who did the external part of the emotion map). 

• Once students are paired up, deliver instructions:

  • Each student will have about 5 minutes each to deliver their emotion map findings to their partner.

  • They can begin by showing their map and explaining their vocabulary usage before they deliver their short paragraph to their partner

  • The listener will record their partner’s short paragraph on how internal/external factors applied to Iyad’s experience, either on the part of the emotion map they didn’t use or on the back of their worksheet.

  • Stress to students that they should share enough in the allotted time (~10 minutes) that their partner will have something to report to the rest of the class. Each student is relying on the other!

• The second half (~10-15 minutes) of the activity should be centered around student reporting

  • Each student in the class will report to their peers about their partner’s thoughts.

  • Each student should deliver multiple well-composed sentences given the allotted preparation time.

  • Delivery should be relatively confident as well; since the students are delivering sentences heavily based on or entirely from their peers, they should be a bit more comfortable, as there is no added pressure from their peers about how “correct” their information is because it is technically not their information.

• Assessing Student Speaking Performance (Informally):

  • As each student shares, take note of:

    • Frequency and relevancy of targeted vocabulary from earlier in the lesson.

    • Pronunciation; students should be adept with select vocabulary words after frequent encounters throughout the lesson/unit.

    • Clarity in reporting.

    • Appropriate speaker volume.

    • Errors; with their worksheets to consult, they should be minimized.

• Once the students have all shared, encourage applause for their efforts and thank them for sharing.

Goal: For students to share what they found most important or relevant to them during the lesson and gain valuable feedback from students.

Time: ~5-10 minutes

Steps & Teacher Directions:

Discussion Circle

• Time permitting after each student delivers their peer's paragraph, conclude the lesson by having students form a circle.

• Have each student share a takeaway from the lesson by answering one of the following discussion questions. Write these on the board:

  • "Which activity helped you develop your English skills the most today? Our vocabulary review, group discussion, video presentation, or speaking assessment?"

  • "Did you prefer our group activities and speaking today or did you favor our individual, reflection-based activities today?"

• This time allows students to reflect on the day's learning with low language-production demands at the end of class after multiple speaking activities during the lesson.

• The circular format may visually help students understand how much time they have to reflect on one of the discussion questions before it is their turn to respond. Additionally, the responses can flow in one direction and students can answer the question they prefer.

• Student feedback here can influence the type of activities you introduce in future lessons based on the class’ preferences if trends are present and/or significant.